Jodi Rudoren to get social media oversight

11/28/12 2:26 PM EDT

Jodi Rudoren is no stranger to the dangers of social media.

Immediately after she was named Jerusalem bureau chief for the New York Times in February, she was already coming under fire from critics on the right and the left for tweets that suggested an anti-Zionist slant. When I interviewed her then, she promised to be "more careful," but added, "it’s not being careful that people won’t find out what I really think, it’s about being careful to be fair. That is what my mission is doing the job."

Alas, Rudoren once again finds herself under fire: During the recent conflict in Gaza, Rudoren wrote Facebook posts describing Palestinians as “ho-hum” about the death of loved ones and claimed to have cried over a letter from an Israeli family, among other things.

The consequence: The Times is forcing Rudoren to work with a social media editor.

The Times is taking steps to make sure that Ms. Rudoren’s further social media efforts go more smoothly. The foreign editor, Joseph Kahn, is assigning an editor on the foreign desk in New York to work closely with Ms. Rudoren on her social media posts.

The idea is to capitalize on the promise of social media’s engagement with readers while not exposing The Times to a reporter’s unfiltered and unedited thoughts.

Given the spotlight that the Jerusalem bureau chief is bound to attract, and Ms. Rudoren’s self-acknowledged missteps, this was a necessary step.

Elsewhere in the dept. of social media restraint, Financial Times editor Lionel Barber has penned a memo to staff asking them to "focus on reporting not comment" when the Leveson report on media standards is released tomorrow.